Hong Kong

by Stephen Coonts

  Sir Robert still referred to Hong Kong as a colony, which it had ceased to be in 1997, even though his staff and the Foreign Office had repeatedly requested him not to.

  “The Orient Bank fiasco was very poorly handled,” the consul general told the foreign minister now. “I expressed our dismay at the senseless loss of life. Appalling. I told Sun that myself. Still, the Chinese brook no nonsense from dissenters.” That was a serious understatement. The authorities were positively paranoid about dissenters, which caused them diplomatic problems throughout the Western world, including the U.K.

  The FM was not so sure about the Communists’ control of the political situation. “The world turns,” he said. “I seem to recall that a few years ago everyone thought that the Communists in Russia had a firm grip—”

  “China is not Russia,” Sir Robert shot back, quite sure he was on solid ground. “The conditions are completely different.”

  “I’ll convey your views to the PM,” the foreign minister said wearily.

  “Do that,” Sir Robert said. “Good-bye.”

  He was amazed at the credulity of the people in London. Of course, they were eight thousand miles from the scene of the crime, but still … a revolution? Here? Because Richard Buckingham said so in his newspapers?

  Governor Sun also had a busy afternoon. Between calls from Beijing demanding detailed facts he didn’t have and issuing directives that made little sense, Sun huddled with key members of his staff, who were trying desperately to establish why the electrical power had failed last night throughout the

  S.A.R. and why so many of the computers that controlled critical government functions were on the blink.

  “Could it be sabotage?” Sun demanded. Like so many of the bureaucrats in Beijing, he had a healthy respect for the unvoiced anger of the people. Baldly, he feared the people he ruled. Repeatedly throughout Chinese history rioting mobs had overthrown dynasties and warlords. Anger and frustration could transform peasants into fierce giants capable of slaying dragons, and Sun well knew it.

  Like so many Chinese officials who had held office as the dynasties rose and fell through the millennia, Sun instinctively wanted to control the people he ruled, ensure they stayed in their place, obedient and quiet. For that to happen in this day and age living conditions in China had to improve, which inevitably caused expectations to rise faster than they could be met. It was a vicious cycle with a bad ending; Sun didn’t want to be the man on the spot when the music stopped and the whole thing exploded.

  Then there were the reactionary capitalist forces that the Communists had struggled against since the first day of the Long March. Always the reactionaries were there, waiting for a misstep, a mistake. Waiting.

  Sun’s aides knew his fears, and they thought they knew the seething maelstrom that was Hong Kong. They soothed him now, told him that there was no evidence of sabotage, when in fact they had no knowledge of why the computers had failed. “A voltage spike, the engineers think,” the aides told the governor, who wanted to believe.

  “A voltage spike” was the message he gave to Beijing.

  American consul general Virgil Cole was not telling his government the truth either. Unlike Governor Sun and Sir Robert MacDonald, who thought they were reporting the truth to their superiors, Cole was lying and knew it. He knew precisely why the power went out last night in Hong Kong and he knew why the airport and harbor computers had failed. He knew what had happened and he knew the plan for going forward.

  Of this, he told the United States government precisely nothing.

  The Chinese desk at the State Department wanted reports and updates and answers to specific questions, all of which Cole farmed out to his staff. He told the staff more or less what he wanted them to tell Washington, which was the truth as far as it went, but not the complete truth, not by a long shot.

  Cole blamed the crisis on the Chinese government’s demand for loans at nominal interest rates, loans the government had no intention of ever paying back. The nongovernment stockholders in Hong Kong banks were taking their money and clearing out, which was the root cause of the Bank of the Orient failure. The shootings of unarmed civilians were directly due to the incompetence of the officers of the People’s Liberation Army and a government that was paranoid of any dissent whatsoever.

  Subsequent problems—power and equipment failures—Cole cavalierly blamed on technical incompetence. When the CIA resident, Bubba Lee, told him of Sun’s “voltage spike” explanation to Beijing, Cole tossed that into his latest report to Washington.

  During his tenure in Hong Kong, Virgil Cole had repeatedly told the American government that the Chinese government was a corrupt tyranny, with a gross disregard for human rights. The ruling oligarchy was paranoid, cowardly, greedy, technically incompetent, and devoid of personal honor. Cole had said all this so many times the people in Washington laughed about it, yet in the past he had made sure he didn’t make himself so obnoxious that the powers that be would fire him. Oh no.

  He referred his staff now to some of his past missives on governmental incompetence. When they returned with drafts of the reports Washington demanded, Cole read them with interest, made a few corrections, signed the things, and sent them off.

  Lying to the government was a bad business, of course, and he had fretted over it for a year. When you put garbage in, you got garbage out. His conscience used to trouble him more than it did now, although it still twinged him a little.

  This evening his lies didn’t even make the long list. He was thinking of Wu Tai Kwong, Callie Grafton, and all the things that had to be done. The letter of resignation was also on his mind. It had been faxed off hours ago, and he was now awaiting an explosion from Washington.

  It was time to go. He didn’t need the consulate anymore.

  If the Chinese arrested him, they knew far too much and the revolution was doomed. But they didn’t know. So there was a chance, a good chance, he believed.

  Time was running out. Lives were at stake, millions of lives. Tens of millions. Hundreds of millions!

  He looked out the window. The frontal clouds had dissipated; blue sky was visible up there between the towering glass skyscrapers. Across the way was the Third Planet office. With the sky the way it was, the windows there were opaque.

  Although Cole didn’t know it, inside those offices Kerry Kent and Wu Tai Kwong’s top lieutenants were holding a council of war. There were seven of them, each in charge of a specialized group of fighters. They were Wu’s friends … although perhaps disciples might be a better description.

  They took the news of Wu’s kidnapping badly. Three of them were for finding Sonny Wong and demanding Wu’s immediate return as the price of Wong’s life.

  Kerry Kent tried to dissuade them. “Sonny Wong has thought of that move,” she argued. “Virgil Cole will pay the ransom. If he doesn’t, we’ll get Wu back in pieces. Do you want Wu alive or Wong dead?”

  “That’s Wong’s choice,” Hu Chiang said tartly.

  “No, it’s ours,” Kerry shot back. “We’ve a revolution to fight. I want Wu back more than anyone in this room, but first and foremost, we must continue the fight that is his life. And ours. That is our first priority.”

  Hu was not persuaded, but two of Wu’s other friends took up Kerry’s argument. “The hour is now,” Wei Luk argued. “Wu Tai Kwong is a general in our army, it is true, but even generals are soldiers. Our cause is more important than any one person. We must not jeopardize it by taking sides in an internal squabble.”

  “Internal squabble?” Kent said incredulously. “Sonny Wong wants fifty million American dollars from Virgil Cole. That’s ransom.”

  “Cole should have donated his money to the cause,” Wei Luk replied stoutly. “If he had, he would not now need us to stop the revolution to save his pocketbook.”

  “His pocketbook? You fool! Wu Tai Kwong’s life is at stake. Sonny Wong is threatening to murder him!”

  “Perhaps he merely threatens. I think Cole is too w
orried about his money.”

  Hu Chiang managed to stop this fruitless argument. “Enough!” he shouted. “Enough! Kerry Kent said the revolution must be our first priority, and I agree. We cannot stop the revolution to search Hong Kong for one man. We must strike now. If we do not, for any reason, we endanger the lives of every member of the Scarlet Team. Let Cole pay the money. There will be time later to deal with Sonny Wong. There is nowhere on this earth he can go to escape us.”

  Wei Luk agreed with that, and so did the others.

  Around sunset two men came to the door of the stateroom—it was a stateroom, Callie had decided, in a yacht or small ship. She and Wu had tossed and turned on their bunks all afternoon. Worried as she was, she still fell asleep for an hour or two, which she attributed to the drug they had injected her with. She still felt groggy, unable to focus properly.

  One of them stood in the door and motioned to Callie. “Come with us,” he said in Cantonese. She went. Pretending she didn’t know Chinese would require some serious acting. She didn’t feel up to the effort, so she didn’t try.

  One in front, one behind, they led her along a narrow passageway lined with doors. She got a glimpse out a porthole, saw that this deck was six or eight feet above the waterline and that the yacht was tied to a pier. It was some kind of yacht, she decided, an old one, though still maintained in excellent shape.

  The man in front opened a door off the passageway, held it and motioned her through.

  A man sat behind a small desk. He was not Chinese; European, perhaps, of medium height and weight, perhaps a hundred and fifty pounds. With a bony head and thin face and pinched nostrils.

  “Sit,” he said in English, and she took the only empty chair.

  The two men who had brought her came into the small room—which was no bigger than the stateroom where she had spent the day—and stood with their backs to the door.

  “Mrs. Grafton,” the man said and pushed a sheet of paper and ballpoint pen an inch or two toward her. “We wish you to write a statement.”

  Russian. With that accent, he was a Russian.

  She made no effort to pick up the pen.

  The Russian waited a few seconds, then said, “Pick up the pen. You will write with it.”

  When Callie failed to obey he reached across the desk and slapped her, a stinging slap. He was remarkably quick with his hands.

  Tears came to her eyes, which infuriated her. She sat there staring into his face through her tears.

  “Perhaps I should explain. Pick up the pen or we will break your left arm.”

  She reached for the thing, got it in her right hand, put both hands back in her lap.

  “Very good,” the Russian said. “A first step. We make progress.”

  He leaned back in his chair and made a steeple with his fingers. “Before you begin writing, I will explain what we want. You listened to a tape that was recorded in the library of China Bob Chan the evening that he died. There were various conversations on the tape. Who were the people talking and what did they say?”

  She looked at the pen in her right hand, so she didn’t see the slap coming. God, the man was quick as a cat.

  “Look at me, Mrs. Grafton. I am not nice. Nice is not a thing I have. I want something from you and I will hurt you to get it. I will cut your face, break your bones, break your head, cut out your eyes, watch men rape you … whatever it takes. I do not care if you live or die. Do you understand me?”

  She nodded.

  “Good. Very good!” the Russian said. He folded his hands on the table in front of him. “Did you listen to the tape?”

  She decided not to talk. If you don’t resist evil you become a part of it, she told herself. She saw the slap coming and went with it, but still the blow numbed her face. And another. And yet again.

  She felt herself starting to go out, slipping away. Her eyes refused to focus.

  Hands grabbed her roughly, held her in the chair. When she could focus again Wu was there, with a man on each side holding him. Wu’s hands were bound by plastic ties and the ties were secured to his belt.

  “Mrs. Grafton,” the Russian said carefully. “Listen to me. I want to know what you know. If you do not talk, I will kill this man who spent the afternoon with you.” That said, he drew a knife and inserted the point into Wu’s arm. The color drained out of Wu’s face, but he said nothing.

  “He is very tough,” the Russian said, grinning at Callie. “But he bleeds.” He made a lengthwise cut in the man’s arm about four inches long and wiped the knife on her blouse. “If you do not answer my questions I am going to cut him into little pieces and feed him to the fish.”

  He was as good as his word. He slowly inserted the knife into Wu’s bicep, at least an inch deep, and slowly drew it down toward his elbow as the blood welled from the cut.

  “I’ll talk,” Callie said, unable to watch.

  “Where is the tape now?”

  “My husband has it.”

  “Who brought you the tape?”

  “Tommy Carmellini.”

  “Is Carmel—is he CIA?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does your husband work for CIA?”

  “Navy. He is in the navy.”

  “Why did Carmel bring him the tape?”

  “Because I speak Chinese and Carmellini doesn’t.”

  The Russian thought about that for a moment, then went on. “Did you hear China Bob Chan on the tape?”

  “I think so.”

  “Virgil Cole?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who else?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He lunged for her, his hand swinging, and she jerked back. One of the men behind her grabbed her hair.

  The Russian slapped her, then said again, “Who else?”

  “I didn’t recognize the other voices.”

  The Russian glanced at the man behind her, and he released her hair.

  She had cut her tongue on the inside of her mouth. The blood tasted coppery and felt slimy, and she had to swallow it.

  “I am going to ask a question, Mrs. Grafton. I want the truthful answer. No lies, please. Lies will be very bad for you. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.” This time it came out a whisper. Blood was still streaming from Wu’s wounds and dripping on the deck.

  “Who killed China Bob Chan?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Oh, Mrs. Grafton, I hoped I would not need to hurt you, and now you lie to me. Too bad, too bad.”

  The Russian came around the desk and reached for her. Callie spit blood in his face. When he blinked and drew back to avoid it, she slashed at his face with the ballpoint.

  One of the men behind her jerked her half out of the chair, turned her, and hit her so hard she passed out.

  When she came to she was in a cold, cold place, in absolute darkness. She felt around her … and felt something cold, like cold, dead flesh.

  She was in a meat locker.

  And she was freezing. Sore, not completely conscious, she curled up in a fetal position to try to conserve her body heat.

  Rip Buckingham wanted to talk. He had been carrying this great burden in his breast for months and months and finally here was someone he could tell, someone who also had a huge stake in how the tale would end, someone with whom he could share his fears.

  He started by telling Jake everything he knew about Sonny Wong, and then he couldn’t stop. He told him about Lin Pe and Sue Lin and Wu Tai Kwong, about Wu’s romance with the British SIS agent Kerry Kent, told him how Kerry approached Virgil Cole and asked for his help, how Cole agreed to help fund the revolution and teach key cell members the fundamentals of cyberwarfare.

  “Soon,” Rip said. “Very soon. The revolution will start and the world as we know it will come to an end.”

  Jake Grafton listened without saying a word. He knew some of it, surmised more, but Rip filled in the gaps and made the story whole.

  “They are going to find out who Wu really is and com
e for Lin Pe and Sue Lin. They are going to drag them off to prison, strangle them. The Chinese think like that. If I can’t shoot you I’ll piss in your well and strangle your mother.”

  “And the women refused to leave,” Jake suggested.

  “How did you know?”

  “If they had agreed you wouldn’t still be here, would you?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “How soon is soon?”

  “Tonight maybe. Tomorrow. Tomorrow night. I don’t know, but it’s got to happen quickly.”

  “Does this Sonny Wong know the timetable?”

  “Only if he has a spy at the very top levels of the Scarlet Team. Each cell has a name. The top one is the Scarlet Team.”

  “How do you start a revolution, anyway?”

  “Wu never told me. He didn’t want me to know too much.”

  “Well, let’s you and me go see if we can find Mr. Wong.”

  Rip didn’t think much of that idea. “He won’t have Callie or Wu with him,” he objected.

  “I want to see him.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to talk to the man,” Jake explained. “Give him a reason not to harm Callie.”

  “Sonny isn’t the kind of man who is easily convinced of anything,” Rip explained. “Especially where money is involved. Talking won’t do any good.”

  “That depends on what we say,” Jake said patiently. “And how we say it. You’ll see. I’m fairly good at delivering messages.”

  “I can’t see how this will help,” Rip protested, but Jake’s mind was made up.

  They rode the tram up the mountain—because the first cable car was going up—and got a taxi at the visitors’ center on top. “Wong has a floating restaurant in Aberdeen,” Rip told the admiral, who wondered if it was the same one that he and Callie had eaten at yesterday. He hoped not. The thought that Wong might have made a dollar off him rankled.

  “Whenever I want to talk to the guy I leave a message there,” Rip continued. “For all I know, Sonny sleeps there sometimes. One other thing I forgot to mention: He has an associate, not a partner, but a chief lieutenant. The man is Russian, Yuri Daniel. Avoid him if you can. Just being around him makes my skin crawl.”